7 Mass-Building Tips from a Pro Strongman and Bodybuilder

Sleep More

Everyone knows this, but do you actually go out of your way to get enough sleep? You can pound all the protein shakes and pre-workout Tasmanian devil drinks you want, but if you aren’t getting eight hours every night, you’re wasting your time and money.

I slept up to 11 hours a day when I squatted 905 pounds in training and set three world records. That was nine hours every night plus 60-minute naps after training and eating. You grow while you sleep, not while you train. Failing to get enough sleep can seriously impede growth, recovery, mental acuity, energy levels, and hormone levels.

Eat Right

This one is a no-brainer too, but the quality and quantity of foods you take in can make a huge difference in your progress. Start with 1g of animal-based protein per pound of body weight, and gradually work up to 1.5g then 2g as you progress.

Nutritionists love to talk about soy proteins or bean and rice combos. Find me one that deadlifts over 800 pounds and I might lend an ear. Otherwise, eat eggs, steak, whole milk, 4% fat cottage cheese, whole milk Kefir, salmon and 88%-plus ground beef. Where’s the boneless skinless chicken, tuna, and whitefish? Save it for when you’re dieting down. You’ll need the saturated fats and cholesterol to keep testosterone levels high and get strong.

Stick with high-quality, protein-dense animal proteins. High-fat foods such as hot dogs, mayonnaise, cheese, bacon, and fast food often yield inadequate quantities of protein and bog down your digestive system, preventing you from eating your next meal on time. The squeamish may not want to hear it, but fast-food meats can be as much as or more than 90% fat and chock full of ground bone and tendon that your body can’t use. Five meals per day, each with 40 to 50g of protein, is a good starting goal.

Gradually train your metabolism to process all that food. You’ll have no better luck trying to eat 5,000 calories tomorrow than you will loading 500 pounds on the bench and asking for a lift off. Start with what you can eat and add calories every week or two, making sure that your training supports the increasing intake. After eating all your proteins and fats, toss in some carbs to fuel your workouts and to help prevent catabolism. Steer clear of white flour foods and stick with healthy servings of oatmeal, rice and potatoes. In the powerlifting world, “mass moves mass” so gradually increase calories to increase mass.

Drink Water

This sounds like another one of those old conventional wisdoms you hear everyone telling everyone else to do. I have a somewhat unpopular but extremely necessary twist for you. Water is worthless…without salt.

You can drink all the water you want, but if you aren’t taking in enough sodium, most of that water will go to waste right along with your worthless mega-doses of vitamins (more on that later). But isn’t salt bad for you? Says who?

The FDA guideline is completely arbitrary—newer research is showing that higher levels of sodium were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular problems. Salt is a bigger performance enhancer than creatine, by a long shot. Sodium increases amino acid absorption and improves carbohydrate storage. And remember neurons from basic biology? Every muscle in your body is fired by a chemical reaction between those neurons called the sodium potassium pump. I’ll leave the scientific details for the lab coats to debate.

Most of us simply need to know that salt is a performance enhancer. There’s no mechanism to store sodium for future use, so you’ll need the recommended 3,000mg a day plus your workload replacement, which can be anywhere from another 1,000-2,000 mg. (NOTE: Those with predispositions to heart conditions may want to consult with a physician. Again, this number is for harder training individuals.)

Lift Hard

Shouldn’t this have been first? Nope! All you do in the gym is break down muscle tissue. All the growth comes from the recovery phase (eating and sleeping), so lifting weights is not the most important part of a mass or strength program. The great thing about being a beginner is that just about any weight lifting program accompanied with the proper recovery (eating and sleeping) will yield results—there is no best program. Lift heavy weights for a few sets of about five reps using basic, multi-joint mass building movements like squats, deadlifts, dips, chins, bench, T-bar rows for an hour a few times a week, and you’ll get bigger and stronger. Don’t over think it, just be consistent and work hard. 

Choose Cardio Wisely

There’s an old saying in the world of 300-pound bodybuilders and powerlifters: “Don’t run if you can walk, don’t stand if you can sit, and don’t stay awake if you can sleep.” That pretty much sums up my opinion of cardio.

Endurance cardio can be muscle-wasting. It’s like pouring water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Either you want to be huge and strong, or you want to run the New York Marathon. Pick one.

That said, some brief high-intensity interval training (HIIT) training sessions here and there can help accelerate recovery by increasing blood flow, clearing lactic acid, and reducing latent muscle soreness. The morning after a huge leg day, I would often do about eight brief (20 seconds), fast (130 RPM), moderate resistance intervals on the bike to aid recovery. Don’t worry about your cardio—if you’re not gasping for air after a big set of squats then you’re just not working hard enough. Interval training and heavy lifting have both been shown to increase metabolism higher and for longer than traditional steady-state cardio.

Don’t Rely Too Heavily on Supplements

No can of weight gainer will ever replace food. After nearly 30 years of competing and having access to all the free supplements I could ever want, I’ve found that there’s very little that actually helps your progress, assuming you’ve got your meals right. Dieting is a different matter, but on a well-fed mass program, save your money for food. 

The most important aspect of supplementation is correcting any vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which are rare but can exist. A blood test can help identify those but just mega-dosing a bunch of vitamins has been proven to not only be worthless, but harmful. Nearly all of the scientific research touting the benefits of vitamins has been done on vitamin-deficient subjects and claims are made based on those results. Very little evidence exists showing any benefit of mega-dosing for non-deficient subjects. However, even scientists who have read and agree with the research take a basic multi-vitamin (100% RDAs), just because it’s hard to know where the deficiencies may lurk. I do the same thing for no particularly good reason. Beyond that, I focus most of my supplementation around my workout.

My pre-/intra-workout drink is a cooler full of ice water, carbs, BCAAs (20g), creatine (10g) and a mineral/electrolyte tablet (Nuun tablet). My post-workout drink when I was competing was whey isolate and carb powder but now it’s just a large shaker of chocolate milk, which serves about the same purpose. I always have some quick post-workout nutrition and then eat an hour after I train. I’ll also admit to being on the bandwagon for a few other supplements that I’ve convinced myself will benefit my long term health so I take 4,000 mg vitamin D3, 300 mg CoQ10 and 2,000mg of omega-3s daily. I also used to take ZMA before bed when I was competing. That’s about the extent of what I’m willing to admit I spend my money on, although I often question the value of the investment because when I miss a week or two of any of the above, I don’t notice any difference in performance. But if I miss a meal or two or have a short night’s sleep, then I immediately feel it in my workouts. Bottom line: supplements will never replace food.

Set Goals and Journal

I have years of spreadsheets with days of the month across the top and a long list of daily requirements down the left side. I cross them off every day to keep myself honest. Everything I wrote about above is on that list. I weigh myself every morning and record the results. I write in how many meals I ate that day, how much sleep I got last night, and whether I was able to nap. I check off every supplement I’ve taken, write down my best lift if I trained that day, etc. I do this because I know that my success is entirely within my control and if I do everything I’m supposed to do, I’ll succeed. 

When I do blood tests and find an area to improve, whether it be low or high iron, hemoglobin A1C, or cholesterol climbing during certain phases of training, I can quickly make adjustments for that in my diet and supplementation program and track it until the next test to verify that I’ve solved the problem. 

Never underestimate the value of setting goals and tracking your progress. I measure my progress daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to make sure I’m succeeding at my goals, and I want to hold myself accountable.